Gearing for 5.2

"Just" posted on the front page that there wont be ANY item upgrading next patch.

Which means that the gear released for honor will be 483 ILVL (Possibly lowered due to some LFR shit) - This 483 ILVL geared will ofc be our Maelvolent (Or something), however, those of us who are fully geared this season allready have upgraded our gear, making it 491.

How exactly does this take away the gear "gap" that we all dont like?

Also, for my question - If you start gearing a character for 5.2 NOW. Would it be most beneficial to:

A) Buy conquest pieces and UPGRADE them asap to 491.
B) Buy conquest pieces but DONT upgrade them, leaving them at their original ILVL.

From what I understand that all ilvl 483 gear is getting downgraded to 476, but we are allowed to keep any item upgrades which would put an upgraded item at 484. We will be able to buy the current conquest gear with honor, yet its only ilvl 476 and will no longer be allowed to be upgraded. This puts us in a big shit storm. If we look at how the current season is. Any alt with 466 upgrade blue honor gear may have close to the same resil and pvp power, however they have much worse regular stats. PvP stats or not, any advantage in pvp is a BIG one. Warrior with 400k health vs warrior with 330k health. I hope they do something about this whole pvp ilvl shit. Honestly, I pve about as much as I pvp. I don't like to see either of them jacked around for the other. More so PvP jacked around for the sake if lolfr.

From what I understand that all ilvl 483 gear is getting downgraded to 476, but we are allowed to keep any item upgrades which would put an upgraded item at 484. We will be able to buy the current conquest gear with honor, yet its only ilvl 476 and will no longer be allowed to be upgraded. This puts us in a big shit storm. If we look at how the current season is. Any alt with 466 upgrade blue honor gear may have close to the same resil and pvp power, however they have much worse regular stats. PvP stats or not, any advantage in pvp is a BIG one. Warrior with 400k health vs warrior with 330k health. I hope they do something about this whole pvp ilvl shit. Honestly, I pve about as much as I pvp. I don't like to see either of them jacked around for the other. More so PvP jacked around for the sake if lolfr.

nope, theres going to be a new malevolent gear with ilevel 476. current one will stay 483 or 491 if you upgrade.

From what I understand that all ilvl 483 gear is getting downgraded to 476, but we are allowed to keep any item upgrades which would put an upgraded item at 484. We will be able to buy the current conquest gear with honor, yet its only ilvl 476 and will no longer be allowed to be upgraded. This puts us in a big shit storm. If we look at how the current season is. Any alt with 466 upgrade blue honor gear may have close to the same resil and pvp power, however they have much worse regular stats. PvP stats or not, any advantage in pvp is a BIG one. Warrior with 400k health vs warrior with 330k health. I hope they do something about this whole pvp ilvl shit. Honestly, I pve about as much as I pvp. I don't like to see either of them jacked around for the other. More so PvP jacked around for the sake if lolfr.

so we should technically buy all the Malo. pieces we can right now, then upgrade them later with honor points once the patch hits (with the exception of the weapon perhaps), correct?
EDIT: Ignore this, just read the front page. Guess we'll all be upgrading as much as poss ;p

I replied to those GC tweets trying to highlight this exact issue. Not easy to get the point over in a freakin' tweet, but they really need to be forced to seriously consider this. I'm not convinced they fully understand the impact that this could have. I can see it going a few different ways.

A) s13 Honor gear has its ilvl buffed to match upgraded S12. Total gear reset. Ideal solution.B) s13 Honor gear is remains as it is, fully upgraded players this season maintain heavy advantage until everyone has full S13. Developers justify this in one or more of the following ways:

i) 'Gear progression', we don't want to invalidate the gear S12 players have worked to obtain. They have been pushing the 'gear progression' line a lot so far this expansion in almost every aspect of the game. A threshold has been crossed in season 12 where gear progression is severely infringing on competitiveness, but it seems as if they are sitting back with PvE tinted glasses saying 'Yup, they are never done gearing! Now everyone can have fun all season long! We done good!'. This is exactly the wrong way to push PvP. Do sportsmen compete just to win the big cash prize from the world championships? Hell no. Playing, besting other players and improving your play is its own reward.

ii) 'The difference in item level between upgraded and non-upgraded is marginal.' Wrong. Competitive-minded individuals will leverage any advantage they can get, no matter how small, because in the top tiers of competition it is the tiny advantages that set apart the good from the best. A good example of this is the recent scandal surrounding Lance Armstrong. If you read the report published into his team's doping activities, you'll realise they went to some absoloutly insane lengths to obtain a fraction of a percent's increase in performance, because they felt that was the difference between 1st place and middle of the pack.

C) They backpedal on removing the NPCs altogether, and allow upgrading of S13 Honor gear with Honor, but not conquest gear. Not my ideal solution, but acceptable.

Bottom line; Season 13 needs to begin with a gear reset to encourage better competition. I worry that Blizzard doesn't realise that competition is, in part, its own reward and will continue to push gear progression at the expense of a (somewhat) level playing field.

If option B makes it to live, I'm considering leaving WoW altogether. There will be very little left to keep me playing. Keeping a close eye on this in the days/weeks to come.

So many clueless people here, Jesus Christ. It's like you people have never played wow before. Time to own you guys: Cata had something similar but it was reverse; new honor gear was higher ilvl compared to the arena one:
Arena gear
Season 11 ilevel 371 http://www.wowhead.com/item=70401
Honor gear
Season 12 ilevel 377 http://www.wowhead.com/item=72450